


Flowers, Ravens, and Keys.

by violethoure666



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-05 05:01:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6690730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violethoure666/pseuds/violethoure666
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE RAVEN KING. CANNOT STRESS THAT ENOUGH.<br/>**************************************************************************<br/>~_SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS _~<br/>This picks up immediately after the end of The Raven King but before the Epilogue. The Gangsy goes back to school, winter is coming, Adam and Ronan and figuring their relationship out, Blue is thrilled that her boyfriend isn't dead and Gansey is...Something More than he used to be. Henry is is as much a part of the group as any of them, and the whole gang is genuinely okay with the idea of sticking out the last few months of senior year in peace. But something is wrong, something is missing, or rather someone. As the gang moves forward they realize that this timeline has been altered, and their memories don't align with the version of reality they are in, a version of reality where Noah Czerny doesn't, and never did, exist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ONE

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, long fics tend to wind me, so I promise not to make this any longer than it absolutely has to be for me to tell this story in the best way I know how. Bear with me. Any notes are appreciated, your comments literally fuel me. Obviously I don't own any of this and am just running on someone else's sheer brilliance, but hey...Excelsior!

The world felt endless; it felt open. Ronan wondered for a horrible moment, more out of habit, if he would wake up and find that everything in the last few months had been a dream. That Gansey would still be doomed, Adam so much farther away, that the darkness inside of Ronan would be back, the self loathing, the anger.  
But it wasn’t.  
They had done it. They had found Glendower.  
Gansey had died, but they brought him back.  
Glendower was dead, but it didn’t matter, somehow even to Gansey, it didn’t matter.  
Adam was standing just a few feet from him and if Ronan wanted to, he could move closer to him. He could press his side against Adams.  
He could take one of Adam’s tanned, perfect hands between his own and bring the skin to his mouth.  
He doesn’t do this, not here at least, but he stored it away along with the rest of his new truths. 

There is so much to do, but at the same time, there is nothing to do. The world stretches out beneath him again…endless.

They went back to 300 Fox Way, all of them. Gansey was alive, he was changed but also he isn't, because while he is undeniably other now, Gansey has always been other. He had always been somehow removed from time. Maura is stunned into some kind of half silence at this revelation, and she kept passing by Gansey and brushing against him, touching his head, his arm. Making sure he was real.  
Ronan was still, which Blue had rarely seen and Adam was close to him, side pressed against side, and when she tipped her head she could see their hands clasped tightly under the table. She smiled. Henry was introduced and immediately seemed part of the clockwork that is 300 Fox Way. He helped Maura prepare tea, he sparred easily with Calla, he had the same effortless grace in Blue’s house that Gansey has in the Camero, that Adam has in Cabeswater, that Ronan has at the Barns.  
Blue filed this way with the rest of her new truths. 

They slept. 

Gansey and Blue slept in Blue’s room beneath the cardboard trees and paper birds.  
Maura let Adam and Ronan take Persephone’s old room, which is still cluttered with a smattering of beautiful items, music boxes, gold chains, crystals with colors that seems to disappear before your eyes. 

Henry crashed on the couch in the Reading/Sewing/Cat room in which he exactly zero unpleasant memories, and they all slid into a deep and dreamless sleep. 

 

They took the next day off from school. It was weird that school was even still a thing, considering what they had been through. Ronan wasn’t going to go back, he really wasn’t, but then the next day rolled around and he knew that Adam would be there and he had to admit it made it slightly easier to go to Aglionby if there was a chance he could sneak a make out session with Parrish in between classes. He sighed, got dressed, and drove to school.  
The world was unchanged, but everything was different. He remembered how just pulling into Aglionby used to make his blood boil, his stomach churn. How had he gone so long with such disconnect? He shivered. It was getting cold, for real. The wind that blew in from the trees was tinged with frost, he should have brought a jacket but he didn’t think about it. The last time he had been here the day was relatively warm. 

“Do my eyes deceive me?” Henry shouted from the cluster of grey sweaters on the green. Gansey’s eyes flashed with delight at the sight of Ronan at school, and Ronan doesn’t miss that Adam’s eyes light up as well, his mouth slipping into an easy smile.  
Anything to see that smile, even suffering another four months of this shit hole if it means more of Parrish’s smiles.  
“Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s a fucking miracle, isn’t it.” Ronan said, smug as he could manage. There was a lightness to the world that was splitting the cracks in everything, he couldn’t even muster real anger about having to be at school, it just wasn’t there at the moment, their triumph was still to fresh and too crisp to be tainted. The sky darkened but it was just a winter storm, not anything more ominous than that and Ronan sighed, looking up at the sky.

Sometimes Adam felt like he was still a small child and sometimes he felt like he was older than the earth itself, but right now, standing on the green, he felt like a teenager. He had been Adam Parrish, army of one, for a very long time, but that thought sat like a lie on his tongue. It wasn’t true anymore. They were an army, the five of them. Ronan, Gansey, Blue, Henry and Adam….but there was something else, wasn’t there? Adam couldn’t remember what he was forgetting, so he let it go.  
He wasn’t an army of one anymore, he didn’t want to be. He thought back over memories of himself, trying not to focus on the details, but rather the feelings. How had he spent so long so angry, ready to fight, ready to claw at anyone who came near him? It seemed so unfair. To himself and to everyone he loved. He felt shame, hot and dark wash over him, and then relief at knowing that he was different now, that he wasn’t stuck in it, that he could change and he could grow and he could do better for himself, for his friends, for Ronan. Oh, Ronan. 

Adam was confused, still, but less so than he had been before. He was still on fire from when the demon had tried to unmake Ronan, and since they had been so completely exhausted after saving Gansey and destroying the Demon, all they did at 300 Fox Way was sleep. And then Adam went back to St. Agnes and Ronan to Monmouth and life had righted itself, somehow.  
But thinking back on that moment, knowing that Ronan, his Ronan, was being unmade in front of him. The sheer relief he felt when Gansey said it had to be then, when Blue agreed, to save Ronan. Adam had wanted to fight, but he couldn’t, he was a weapon, and he was desperate for anything, anything to bring Ronan back. He wished so badly it could have been him who saved Ronan, he felt it like a living thing inside of himself. Ronan, the hurricane, Ronan, the car crash, Ronan, the battlefield. Adam shivered, there was so much of Ronan that still seemed so far away, so disconnected from any piece of him Adam could reach, but God was he trying. 

He didn’t realize he had been staring at Ronan, but Ronan noticed. When Adam finally snapped back to himself, Ronan was looking at him knowingly. 

“Hey uh Parrish, so my car is making this super fucked up sound.” Ronan said, keeping his bright eyes on Adam. “Can you spare the first 5 minutes of homeroom to make sure it’s not going to blow up?”

Adam was positive it was not going to blow up. Gansey was also positive it was not going to blow up, and was confused about why this would need to be addressed now. Blue would have known exactly why, but she wasn’t there because she didn’t go to Aglionby Acadamy. 

“Yeah, sure.” Adam said, and he and Ronan headed off the green toward the parking lot.

“Ohhh,” Gansey said, turning to Henry.  
“There it is Buddy,” Henry said, putting his arm around Gansey and hauling him off toward homeroom. “There it is.”

 

The car was not going to blow up. It wasn’t even making a fucked up sound. Ronan didn’t need to say “I lied about the car,” but he did anyway because he was Ronan and Adam said “I know” and then pushed Ronan up against the BMW and kissed him. 

Kissing Ronan was like learning you could breath underwater. It was both the act of air rushing back into his lungs after being starved for it, and also the knowledge that such a thing was possible after never having even considered it. It was strange to want something so fiercely and so suddenly, when it had been in front of you the whole time. 

Ronan was handsome, Adam had always known this and he had envied Ronan’s effortless beauty, even if it was razor sharp. Adam hadn’t considered Ronan romantically until summer, after Ronan had confessed he could take things from his dreams, after Adam had glimpses into the mind of Ronan Lynch. And really, after so many sideways glances, after Ronan sitting either too close or too far from him, and never without intention. It wasn’t that he woke up one day and had a crush on Ronan Lynch, it was that every day he spent with him once summer started, after his bargain with Cabeswater and the knowledge of Ronan’s truth, he learned something strange or beautiful about Ronan.  
Maybe it started with the rent. Adam had been foolish to assume it was Gansey, but he had and it had filled him with rage.  
When he figured out it was Ronan, he waited for the rage to come but it didn’t. Adam didn’t want handouts, he didn’t want help, and he didn’t want anything from anyone. But Ronan never seemed to want to give anything to anyone, not even a flinch or a word or a smile. He wasn’t Gansey, trying to perfect and protect, he wasn’t trying to bribe Adam or keep him around. What did Ronan care if Adam finished school? So whereas Adam would have always felt like Gansey had done it for Gansey, he knew that Ronan had done it for Adam, and he was humbled. 

So Adam pushed Ronan hard against the side of the car and brought his hands up to claw at his shaved head and pushed his knees apart with his leg so he could feel the line of Ronan’s entire body pressed against his. Ronan made a small sound at the back of his throat and Adam had to stop himself before he lost all sense of time and decency. He pulled back. Ronan looked starry eyed, electric and surprised. 

“I kinda definitely like this whole you comin’ to school thing.” Adam said, his voice low and his accent thick against Ronan’s neck. Ronan hummed. He didn't care if this was a ploy to get him to graduate. It was working.  
“School does seem to have improved significantly since the last time I was here,” Ronan said, and pulled Adam down for another hungry kiss. Adam couldn’t stop feeling Ronan’s skin, the solidity of him under his hands.  
Unmade, unmade, unmade.  
There was something not unlike panic inside of Adam now, almost losing Ronan had pushed him further down into whatever hole he had been falling into, and the deeper he fell the more he realized it wasn’t a hole at all. He wasn’t falling downward, he was being lifted, up, up, higher and higher until there was no air, there was only flowers and ravens and Ronan. 

 

Xxx

Blue was actually enjoying school. It wasn’t hunting for Glendower, but that held a little bit more appeal now that the entire hunt had come to a riveting climax. She was okay with being Blue the student for a few more months, because that’s all it was really. A few more months, and then freedom. Freedom to…she didn’t know yet, but she knew it involved Gansey and maybe they could really go with Henry to Venezuela. She had been thinking about the three of them traveling together a lot. She walked up to the bus stop after school, a group of kids who she knew the names of but not anything about were already there, and they laughed to themselves as Blue stood a little removed from the group.  
“Hey, Blue, what do you think of this?” One of the girls, Lindsey, asked, turning a cell phone toward Blue. She could see it was a picture of one of the boys, Carl, and a very big very fluffy cat. Carl was asleep, shirtless, snuggling the cat for dear life. Lindsey clearly found this hilarious and Carl clearly did not, and Blue didn’t know enough information to really make a call but she tried to imagine that it was a picture of Ronan instead and this did make her chuckle. Lindsey thought the laugh was for her, and she looked delighted. Just at that moment, a splash of sliver whipped around the corner and stopped in front of the bus stop.  
Shit.  
It was Henry’s car, and they had just done this not that long ago, hadn’t they? Hadn’t she made it clear he couldn’t just come here and pick her up without ruining her very carefully cultivated image? She wanted to be angry, but the world was cracked open and light was all around and her boyfriend wasn’t dead, in fact he was so not dead that said boyfriend stepped out of the passenger seat of the Fisker and walked right up to Blue Sargent and…kissed her. 

Richard Campbell Gansey the Third was a lot of things, and he was immediately impressive. His entire demeanor had always demanded attention, and not so much respect as curiosity and wonder. He was still all of those things, but also somehow something more. He had always been Cabeswater but now he was so much more than before, and this was a very un-Gansey like thing to do. 

Also, Blue couldn’t really blame him. Her thoughts went something like this. 

Fuck, Henry is here. Fuck, he brought my boyfriend. You should be happy to see your boyfriend, look how not dead he is. Also, who gives a shit what any of these people think, also….you’re kissing Gansey. Gansey is kissing you because for the first time he can kiss you, he can kiss you he can kiss you. 

Blue was dazed, she pulled back. “Really?” she said.  
“I’m sorry Jane, it had to be done.” He said and he shrugged. He looked absolutely pleased with himself. Blue supposed there was something to be said for having to keep your girlfriend a secret, and even then knowing that you can’t ever kiss her or you will drop dead, and then suddenly being able not only to kiss her but to flaunt it…it wasn’t a very Gansey thing to do, but she had to admit she was a little flattered. 

 

Blue turned around to look at the crowd of people staring at her.  
“You’re really messing up my image here,” She whispered to Gansey and then she took his hand, turned around to face her peers and said, “Guys, this is my boyfriend. Dick.”

Gansey whipped his head back to Blue, she had never called him Dick in her life. He was unpleased with the name, but overwhelmingly happy to be introduced as Blue’s boyfriend so he let it go and waved amiably to the group of students, all of whom were staring at him and Blue, and the fancy car behind them. Just at that moment the window rolled down, Adam and Ronan lounged in the backseat, Ronan in the middle, crawling over Adam to lean out and say “Can we please get the fuck out of here, I’m starving.”  
Blue didn’t miss the way his hand was braced on Adams leg, his body pressed against the other boy.

“Wow Blue, I didn’t expect…I mean I didn’t know you had a…Dick.”  
Linsdey said, smiling in what was not necessarily a kind way, but was also not unkind and Blue thought it could be worse.

“Right, I try not to let him out in public too often, you can imagine why.” Blue gestured to the car as she pushed a slightly offended Gansey into the back seat and climbed into the passenger seat. She waved and rolled up the window.

“You guys," she said, "are seriously assholes.”  
“Look who’s embarrassed by her superhuman Raven Boy-friend aw” Henry said, and he really did look endeared by the whole thing. Adam looked mostly bored and Ronan looked like he was ready to shoot fireworks out of his eyes if he didn’t get out of the car soon.  
“I told you it was a bad idea,” Adam said, and Blue caught Gansey’s hurt expression. She was a little put off by the whole thing. She thought they understood her reasoning behind keeping her lives separate, but she could also see how now that she was allowed to be with Gansey, both physically and cosmically, how badly he had wanted a slice of that life, showing off that he was her boyfriend. This was admittedly, un-Ganseylike behavior. Blue filed it away for later with the rest of her new truths and smiled at Gansey, a real smile, and said “Yeah but I mean, did you see Lindsey’s face.”

 

They were hungry, and Blue and Adam didn’t have work, admittedly Blue hadn’t worked much in the last couple months, she doubted she still had a job and didn’t want to show up at Nino’s having fun before she got a chance to find out, so they had to settle for Morton’s Sports Bar on Third which was decidedly not their first choice place but that they were willing to settle for Blue’s sake, as long as she promised to remedy the Nino’s awkwardness as soon as possible. She agreed.

The sports bar was terrible, but it was to be expected. Everyone there was delighted by the presence of The Gangsy and quickly ordered a variety of fried food befitting a sports club to their table and dropped over to mingle and exchange what Blue considered meaningless time stats for rowing teams. 

Henry was as friendly as Gansey, and just as easy with a smile. He had a radiance about him, an energy that made people want to be near him. It was why he was the leader at Lichtfield House, why she herself had been so quick to turn from dislike to genuine interest in such a short period of time. Henry was a lot of things, just like Gansey, but he was also very different. He had grown up rich as a king, sure, but Gansey had confided Henry’s secrets to them prior to bringing him in on the hunt and Blue knew what Henry had endured. That he had been kidnapped, tortured, that his mother had stood by. She remembered another night, not long ago, Gansey explaining to her that both of them were rich in love, and even Ronan too, back when it mattered, in the first few years. But not Adam. And not Henry. There was something broken beneath his sunny demeanor and what really made Blue warm from the inside was knowing that Henry took that darkness, and he worked through it. He didn’t ignore it, but it didn’t rule him. It was, and he was, and both could be. She envied that, or she found it remarkably unattainable in general, she wasn’t sure which. But either way, Henry grew on her, as quickly as any of the boys had which was to say within moments. It was true that their bond had fortified over time, but really she only known all of them the inside of a year. Even Gansey and the other boys only had a year and half on her, tops, when they were all old and gray, we will all grow to be old and gray, it will have all felt like a moment. No time at all. Henry was very much a part of their web, nothing would have been possible without him, and the idea of losing him now felt as significant as losing any of her Raven Boys, each one equally horrifying.  
Something tugged at Blue, she felt sick all of a sudden, she had forgotten something, but she couldn’t remember what.  
She went pale.

“Blue?” Gansey said, “are you alright?”  
“No, no Gansey something is wrong, something is very wrong.”  
The thing is, Blue didn’t have “Psychic Moments” and to be honest, she wasn’t sure this even qualified. This wasn’t energy, this wasn’t a feeling or a premonition. This was knowing you left the stove on, knowing you were already two hours late to something you were supposed to be at, no chance at all of fixing it. Something was wrong.  
“Ronan,” She looked up at, imploringly, she wasn’t sure why.  
Gansey waited for Ronan to shout what the fuck do you want me to do about Sargent? But instead he sighed, and glanced at Adam, who looked as confused as Blue feels.  
“I think…I think it’s Noah.”  
“Who?” Gansey said.  
Just at that moment, more food arrived, and with it a throng of Raven Boys who all have something Very Important to tell Blue. She was not in the mood for mainsplaining and the name was setting off alarms in her head Noah, Noah, Noah, Noah. She had forgotten Noah, she had absolutely forgotten him, there was the space Noah used to be, and she had to cling to it to see any memory him. Oh god. Noah, where was he? He didn’t feel…passed on, he just felt gone. Blue was suddenly reminded of something, a memory from before she had met Gansey but after she knew he was going to die, when Neeve had scryed into the cran-grape juice to see Gansey’s death. She had said, “He’s just gone. He doesn’t exist.” It wasn’t, “He went on, passed on, has moved on” It was just…disappeared. That was where she knew Noah was. She was sure of it, she had to find him had to find…Noah. Noah. It was so hard to keep the thought of him in her head, it felt like it was too heavy to move when she tried to think about it. It took fifteen minutes for the Raven Boys to clear out enough for Blue to say it.  
“Noah.”  
“Noah,” Ronan said, “I think he’s really…elsewhere.”  
“That’s one way to put it.” Blue said.  
“Who,” said Henry, “is Noah.”  
“Our ghost friend,” Blue said.  
“Our what? We have a what? I’m with Henry here I am confused.” Gansey clearly knew he was missing something, and he felt the dissonance there, but he genuinely had no idea who they were talking about.  
“No,” said Ronan, looking fervently at Adam, “Parrish…No.”  
“I’m sorry,” Adam said, and he looked like he was sick over it, “I can’t remember, but I feel like…there’s an erased space in my mind, there is something missing now, and I can see where it used to be but I could never be the one to name it.” He looked at Ronan imploringly, Ronan looked horrified. “Please, Ronan, we can fix this, we can. Just…you need to work with Blue and pool your memories, we need to know what happened so we can figure out what went wrong. And then we can fix it.”

“How, exactly, can we ‘fix’ anything. Cabeswater is gone, Noah is a ghost at best and at worst…” She shivered, “We can’t fix this, not now. Not without Cabeswater.”  
Adam looked at Ronan, and Ronan looked at Gansey, and Gansey looked genuinely so confused.  
“I am working on bringing Cabeswater back, but…it’s not something I can do in a night, or a week, or even a year it has to be…you don’t understand, it can’t even be like it was before, which would still be fucking huge, because it was so weak, and everything has to be better and stronger and able to protect itself. We are a long ways away from a working Cabeswater.” His jaw was set, his eyes wet. “But I am trying.” Ronan looked at Gansey as he spoke, and Gansey felt his heart rate quicken, his blood began to sing, he felt as if he were nothing but stardust linked by quantum entanglement to some cosmic explosion galaxies away. Could they really get Cabeswater back?  
Next to Gansey Blue wondered, could they really get Cabeswater back in time to save Noah?  
“Okay,” Said Adam, “Okay so for now, Blue and Ronan you should meet and pool all the information you have as soon as possible, the sooner we know what we’re dealing with, the sooner we will be able to come up with a plan.”  
Gansey nodded, a look of intense puzzlement on his face. This was not the end of this conversation for Richard Campbell Gansey the Third tonight, but he would agree to end it now anyway. Henry was silent, confused, bewildered…enchanted. He had wanted magic; he had it now. Ronan looked overwhelmed and Adam just kind of looked at Ronan but they ate the greasy bar food and they said goodbye to the other stray Ravens and they headed back to Henry's Fisker where Gansey drove and Blue rode shotgun. Henry leaned over to Blue’s window to ask her questions about Mountain View High and her experience and in the backseat Ronan draped one of his legs over Adam and pressed his face into his neck, smiling into him without a care in the world. They could find Noah; they could do anything. They were Kings and Dream Weavers and Mirrors and Forests and Magicians, all of them, and if Noah needed to be saved, then they would go to the ends of time to save him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is where that M rating is gonna really shine. Smut and it's super gay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo this is like 3k+ words of really intense emotional and physical intimacy and very little story line. Oops. I have a lot of feelings, but I promise this is going somewhere and beneath all that smut there is plot! Again, if you like it PLEASE tell me so, I am absolutely starved for validation. Also open to ideas/requests/corrections as it is pretty much unedited. And uh, if I created this, I wouldn't be writing here, probably because it would breach some major clause in my legal contract about cross contamination and whatever. Anyway, I didn't create the raven boys, I am just playing with them.

Gansey dropped them all off at their cars at Aglionby and switched over to the Camero and departed with Blue. Henry set off toward home and Adam loitered close Ronan.

“Will you come home with me?” Ronan asked. He looked at Adam, his eyes were honest and wide in the glow of the street light, the rest of his face all shadows and angles.

“Depends, can you give me a ride to school tomorrow? And not just a drop off?” Adam asked, moving slightly closer to Ronan.

“Can we find somewhere else to make out around Aglionby? Because I might be able to see the point in sitting through the absolute shit that is physics if there were say, semi secluded and certainly comprisable situations we might find ourselves in.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?” Adam asked. It was a dare. It was such a dare.

“Come over, leave the shitbox, I will definitely drop you off and most likely stay for at least some of school myself so lets go, come on. It’s fucking freezing I’m not gonna have any balls left for you to play with.”

“Ronan! “ Adam said but he laughed anyway and got into the BMW and took off toward the house.

 

They got back to The Barns, it was really starting to get cold now, the temperature dipping into the 30s as November pushed forward. Thanksgiving was coming up, Adam almost forgot. He hadn’t celebrated it in years until he met Gansey. The Gansey’s really went all out for Holidays. He was excited for Blue and Henry to see it.

Ronan lit a fire in the living room, and the glow brought the farmhouse to life, all oversize blankets and cozy rugs and stacks of tin and copper and picture frame after picture frame, dancing in the half light. The huge windows looked out onto a grey moore, scattered with tiny barns. There were fireflies in the distance. They should have been dead, but they were dream things, Ronan’s own creations. That was Ronan, always dreaming of light. Adam moved to stand directly behind Ronan, who looked out the floor to ceiling window at the frozen night.

 

Ronan looked like an ink stain against the silver backdrop, like an impossible study in edges. How was it that if you cut open this jagged metal and glass creature, you would find flowers instead of blood and birds where a heart should be? Adam felt his chest seize; he lost his breath. For a moment he thought it might be Cabeswater but it couldn’t be, and it wasn’t it was just…Ronan.

 

Adam wasn’t sure what the line was, he wasn’t sure what he was allowed to take and what he had to ask for and he wasn’t sure what he was actually able to ask for out loud when he thought about it, because his head just sort of went fuzzy. The first night here, on the couch, they had kissed, hands in hair and on faces and necks, but that was it. Adam took off Ronan’s shirt to trace his tattoo, and Ronan burned under his fingers, his body tense as an arrow, humming electricity. Adam had kissed every inch of the tattoo and Ronan, breathless, took Adam’s hands and brought them to his mouth, before sucking his fingers into the wet cavity and closing his eyes. It felt, shit it had felt really good and Adam was shamelessly, immediately, hard as fuck. That was some wizard shit. Ronan’s mouth, his tongue, the pressure, oh god, it went right down to his cock. They had kissed, and kissed more, and eventually, they fell asleep. Bodies burning. Since then, there had been more kissing, but no real touching and Adam was starting to worry a little. He kind of just wanted to do it and get any awkwardness over with and also get to see Ronan naked because… He jerked his head up. Ronan was watching him.

 

“Where do you keep going?” Ronan asked quietly, he had been standing there, hands in his pockets, leather bands around his wrist as dark as the shadows behind him. He was watching Adam.

“I keep getting lost.” Adam said softly.

“Is it like, a Cabeswater thing?” Ronan asked.

“No, it’s like, a thinking about Ronan Lynch naked, thing.” Adam said, a cocky grin cracking his face.

Ronan definitely blushed and Adam definitely felt his stomach twitch and a heat pool a little lower down than that. He was hungry, he was starving, and Ronan blushing was almost too much. Adam was overwhelmed with what else he might be able to make Ronan do, or say, or feel.

 

Adam moved in on Ronan, bringing one hand up to grip his face and the other found it’s way to the small of his back to pull him in closer. Adam was pretty sure that Ronan had never been with anyone, guy or girl, and while Adam was no expert exactly and he was definitely new at this whole gay thing, he wasn’t exactly…clueless. I mean, he grew up in a trailer park, very little supervision, and very curious kids. He was losing a battle with his own composure every time he even looked at Ronan Lynch. He wasn’t really sure Ronan knew what to do and he really didn’t know what to do either but he knew that he had to do something, really anything, and he realized how badly he wanted to touch Ronan, all of Ronan, especially Ronan’s cock.

 

It didn’t feel as dirty now as it did when Adam thought about it at night, alone, hand wrapped around himself. When he would imagine what Ronan would look like, taste like, what he would sound like when he came.

 

Ronan, who never flinched, who never gave an inch. Adam wondered how much he could make him squirm…

 

Adam pulled back, “Lost, lost” he whispered. There were no lights but the moon was bright and the Moors behind the barns seemed to glow with some eerie memory of moonlight, and so even in just the light of the fire Adam could see all of Ronan and Ronan could see Adam.

 

Ronan was breathing so fast, his hands balled up in fists.

Adam leaned into him and Ronan’s hands exploded to explore Adams sides, his back, the knobs of his spine, each one a marvel under his finger tips.

“Adam,” Ronan said, and his voice cracked, “You don’t understand how long…how much I…” Ronan looked wrecked, he pulled back from Adam. How had Adam ever thought that Ronan was nothing but anger and sharp edges? Yes, he was a hurricane, yes he was a dream of the sea, a fire in the sky, more miracles than anyone could hope to see in a lifetime tangled up in one boy. But Adam didn’t see how he could have missed it, how soft Ronan really was, how every edge was placed carefully to hide some raw and tender thing beneath. Adam wanted to lick every wound, like the skin of overripe fruit leaking sugar onto fingers.

 

“Tell me,” Adam said, pulling Ronan’s shirt over his head and letting his fingers whisper across his chest. Maybe it would have been dirty talk, maybe it at some point in time and space it would be really sexy to hear Ronan talk about all the ways he wants Adam, but when he starts to speak it isn’t sexy, he speaks with reverence, with adoration and Adam didn’t know what he was expecting but it wasn’t this.

 

“I used to dream about you, even before we were friends” Ronan said, peppering kisses on Adams neck and slowly lifting off his shirt as well. He ran his fingers over Adam’s chest, so much paler than the rest of him.

“In my dreams, every freckle was a star and you would let me map the constellations with my hands, with my mouth.” Ronan said, moving onto his knees to kiss Adam’s stomach.

Adam was shaking. No one had ever said nice things to Adam, not beyond complimenting his academic achievements, in _light of his circumstance._ And this, this was…Ronan.

“I remember the first time I saw you, on your first day at Aglionby and I remember I was standing on the green,” Adam looked down at Ronan as he spoke. “And Gansey was laughing and then everything went soundless. Not quiet, but soundless, fucking silent. All the air was gone and I looked across the grass and you were there, you were looking at me.”

“I don’t remember that,” Adam whispered.

“I know, it was before all this shit, it was before everything…Then later when we started hanging out I knew you didn’t like me, not even like this kind of like me, just in fucking general but it didn’t matter because I didn’t like me either and the idea of having you was something I never even let myself think about.” Ronan was looking away now. “I never said it out loud, Parrish, not then. It only came to me in dreams, but every night there you were.”

This was Ronan naked, in a different way, but no less mesmerizing. Adam lowered himself to the ground beside Ronan and kissed him, softly.

“I always liked you, maybe not always _this_ much,” Adam smiled, “But that’s because for so long you were always…untouchable. You were a thunderstorm incarnate. Raw energy, beautiful, electric.”

They kissed again.

“I was so jealous of Blue,” Ronan continued.

“I didn’t want to admit why, I tried to say I just didn’t want her near Gansey, near us, near our lives but I knew that wasn’t it because she fit, you know. It felt right to have her with us but so wrong to see her with you.” Ronan held Adam’s eyes.

“When did you know for sure?” Adam asked.

“I think I always knew, but I didn’t put into words until the 4th of July. When I had to battle K’s dragon, you know, you and Persephone had repaired the Ley Line and I got into Cabeswater and saw that I had to bring the night horror back and Adam, you don’t understand.” Ronan looked terrified “Until that day all they wanted was to kill me, they hated me, they wanted me dead. I didn’t realize it was because they only wanted I wanted.” Ronan let the words hang for a moment, but began speaking quickly as Adam looked for words.

“It was Orphan girl, she told me, they don’t hate you, you hate you. She asked me, why do you hate you?” Ronan closed his eyes, took Adams hands.

“I heard you say my name, and I looked to the sky and I said it. I don’t. I don’t hate myself. I don’t want to die. And like that, it was gone. The fear, the self-loathing, and once all the darkness was washed away all that was left was light, and in that light was you. So I knew it then, I knew it that day.” Ronan looked at Adam and sighed, deeply, the kind of sigh that comes with not just getting something off your chest but with contentment, with acceptance. He was stripped bare, all tough edges worn away as if by the sea.

 

Adam grabbed Ronan and kissed him again, but harder, with intent. Ronan’s hands fluttered like birds to Adams face, his shoulders, pulling him down on top of him. The line of his body was so solid, so intense. Ronan had never felt anything like it. It was like racing, it was like fighting. The only time he had been close enough to his desires to acknowledge them they had always been soaked in sin. He never had considered that he could have everything he wanted and it wouldn’t kill him, wouldn’t even hurt. He shivered under Adam and the shudder of his body, his stomach clenching, his breath catching in his throat, made whatever blood was left in Adam’s head leave in a rush to flood his heart and…well also his dick, Jesus Christ, he was straining against his jeans, he had never been this hard in his life.

Ronan’s hands moved lower, down to Adams hips, down into the waistband of his pants. He began fumbling with Adam’s fly, and Adam lifted his hips enough to let Ronan unbutton his slacks and to unbutton Ronan’s black chinos as well.

This was it, Adam was sure he would die if he didn’t touch Ronan, didn’t get to see his face open and hungry, all for Adam. They pushed their pants and boxers down, and kicked them out of the way. Adam settled back on top of Ronan, every line of his naked body pressed against the other boy. He found his hungry mouth and ground his hips against Ronan. He could feel his own dick pressing into Ronan’s hip, and there, just at the line of his groin was Ronan’s cock. Ronan strained upward.

Adam broke, his hands flew to Ronan’s shoulders as he pushed him down against the floor, pushing himself off of Ronan.

There was a moment of panic in Ronan’s eyes at Adam’s extraction but he just kissed Ronan, whispering, “I have to see you, baby, I wanna touch you,” in his lowest voice with the thickest accent.

And Ronan Lynch fucking whimpered.

Adam pulled back and looked at Ronan, he braced himself on his knees, his cock was red and straining toward Ronan. Ronan moved to sit up, to touch Adam but Adam pushed him back down. He was lost, he was so lost.

“Please, Ronan, please…I’ve been dreaming about this too, I think about this… all the time.”

Ronan was hyperventilating, the blue in his eyes was a slim ring around a wide pool of black, blown with desire more powerful than any drug K had ever dreamt up.

“You…you do?” Ronan asked, and his voice was cracking, this was a side to Ronan Adam had never seen. A side that, Adam realized, no one had ever seen.

“Yeah, of course I do. Sometimes I think about you driving, how you look in your car, how much better you would look in your car naked, better even if someone else is driving and you’re with me in the backseat.” Adam rubbed Ronan’s legs, his thighs, the dusting of hair on his pale belly.

“I think about you when I’m alone at St. Agnes, and I touch myself and think about you and I can even say your name when I cum, because no one but me can hear it.”

Ronan arched up, he was whimpering in earnest now, if Adam didn’t touch him he would die. He tried to move his hand to his own dick but Adam pushed it back.

“Come on, Lynch. Patience.” He cracked a wicked grin and Ronan growled like a wild fire but he didn’t move his hands again and Adam almost came just from realizing that this version of Ronan would do anything, anything Adam wanted.

Adams hands grazed over Ronan’s shaft, his eyes ate up the edge of his hipbones, the curve of his ass, his thin legs tight with sinew. Ronan Lynch had the prettiest dick in all of Henrietta, Adam was absolutely sure about it and also had no desire to ever test that theory and see if he was right.

 

He kissed Ronan’s hipbones, his thighs, the tip of his cock. He slowly lowered his mouth down onto Ronan.

It was…different. Adam had gotten blowjobs but he had certainly never given one, and the whole thing was admittedly super strange at first but then Ronan made this kind of helpless noise and said “Oh fuck, Parrish, fuck.” And Adam was determined to do whatever he could to make Ronan curse more. Adam loved Ronan when he was swearing. He reached down to touch his own cock while Ronan’s was still hot along his throat.

He took Ronan as deep as he could and he let his hand do the rest, and Ronan thrashed under him but never moved his hands from where Adam had put them by his head, he just whimpered and moaned. And he also begged.

“Adam please, oh fuck, you motherfucker, your mouth is so hot, what the fuck.”

No one had ever sucked Ronan Lynch off before and he was overwhelmed with not only the sensation but with the fact that this was a _guy_ sucking him off and not just any guy but fucking Adam Parrish.

Holy shit Adam Parrish had his dick in his mouth.

“I’m gonna cum,” Ronan panted, bringing his hands to Adams shoulders. Adam pulled back.

“Not yet, “ he said, and Ronan’s body slammed into itself with the force of slowing down, he couldn’t breathe, his hands grasped at air and Adam took both of his in his own gently waited a moment before he lowered his body onto Ronan again. Adam kissed Ronan and Ronan could taste himself on his tongue and their heart rates stuttered to match. Adam took Ronan’s dick in his hand and slide it up against his own, spitting in his hand to make it even wetter and then he began to jerk them both off, one hand around their dicks and one bracing himself up above Ronan. Ronan was clawing at Adam’s chest and biting his lip and looking absolutely ruined, absolutely beautiful. Adam was close, he was really close, and he told Ronan this which only made Ronan thrust harder into Adam’s hand and against his dick and then Adam said, “Come for me, Ronan, I wanna watch you cum.”

 

And Ronan did. As soon as Adam said the words a floodgate released inside of him. Adam watched Ronan’s face break open and heard him cry out in ecstasy or terror, it sounded the same to Adam, it sounded perfect. He collapsed on top of Ronan and kissed him, his eyes, his forehead, his neck, and as he did Ronan shook and gasped for breath.

“Oh my god, Ro, that was so perfect.” Adam felt Ronan’s arms grab him and pull him closer, closer. If he could crawl all the way inside of Ronan he would. They kissed until they felt their hearts come to earth, until Ronan was asleep against Adam and then Adam watched the fire die down and grabbed some of the blankets from the couch and tucked them in. Ronan looked peaceful, his breathing even, his face untroubled. Adam had seen him struggle in sleep, wrestling with dreams so many times, but he had never taken the time to watch Ronan sleep peacefully so he did until his eyes were as heavy as the rest of his body and then he slept quietly, too.

 

 

Blue and Gansey drove around Henrietta. Blue was pretty sure she got a free pass for as long as didn’t get suspended again, and the whole town was beginning to come alive with the Holiday Season.

“You kissed me.” Blue said, eyes still straight ahead.

“I did.” Gansey agreed. “I know it was a little bit…lavish,” he said.

“I was going to say ego-stroking male-dominant possessive shit throwing, but oaky…I’ll take lavish.”

Gansey winced, “Are you mad?” He asked.

“Honestly,” Blue said, watching his face, “No. Not even a little bit. I don’t know how I could be when last week I would have traded anything to keep you here, and now I have you and…” She caught her breath, sometimes it didn’t feel like it could be true, it didn’t feel like she could have possibly deserved this. She tried to remind herself that that line of thinking was irrational, and better yet, even if it was true that it wasn’t about her. It was about what Gansey deserved and no one deserved life more than this boy. Her heart hurt, she couldn’t keep so many feelings inside something as small as a human heart.

“I don’t give a shit, Gansey. And I get you not giving a shit either, but it was still a little…outside of our norm.”

“It was, I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me I just…I need you to understand that there is something in me dying to cement this version of reality, to make it _truer_ than it is.”

She understood. She wished she didn’t.

“You kissed me,” She said again.

“I did.” He agreed again.

“We talked, the other night, after you…woke up.” She said, and his body was tight, his attention on her even with his eyes on the road.

“We said we both it felt it, how both of us, made from such insubstantial or too substantial material could not both exist when confronted like that, and yet…you kissed me. And you didn’t die, and I didn’t die, except maybe from embaressement.” She laughed and Gansey laughed despite himself and looked at her pityingly.

“But that’s a pretty big leap to take, Gansey-Boy. How did you know it would, or wouldn’t, or whatever.”

“Honestly?” He asked her, his smile mischevious.

“Aways,” She said.

“I asked your mom.”

If Blue had been drinking iced tea she would have spit it out.

“Are. You. Serious.” She said, angling her enire body toward Gansey.

“Yeah I mean, I had to be sure? I’m not stupid, Blue. I wouldn’t have just risked something like that obviously I had to be sure and let’s be real, the pool of people capabale answering such questions is pretty small, and all of them are related to you.”

Blue could not argue this, but she still felt a small moment of…awkwardness at the thought of Gansey asking Maura if it was okay to kiss her…to do, maybe even other stuff to her.

See, Blue was a lot of things but above everything else she was very sensible. And as such, when she knew that she could not have Gansey, she did her best to put all thoughts about their life together aside. Some were harder than others, because she loved Gansey and a future of loving him, of spending days hunting for magic and nights with their friends and maybe one day having a family seemed like the best thing in the world, and hard to stay away from. Only slightly easier to ignore were other, dirtier thoughts. She never even let herself entertain these because there was nothing in it but trouble, the more she wanted Gansey, the more she let herself think about what she was missing, the more she wanted him fiercely. So she did not think about anything remotely intimate if she could help it, beyond holding him and hearing his heart crash against her ear, which even without kissing was still pretty romantic.

 

But now, what was stopping them? Oh my god, nothing. Nothing was stopping them. Blue thought about pulling over and having sex in the back of the Camero but it was a disorganized and frantic thought and she shut it away because it was clearly not good enough to be the first real time she allowed herself to think, to think about.

She thought she might faint.

“Jane…Are you going to throw up? I didn’t think it was that bad, honestly!”

“No it’s not that,” Blue said, but Gansey looked worried, terrified even and Blue didn’t know what to do she was in totally new territory, so sensible as ever she tried honesty.

 

“Gansey…Pull over. Pull over.” He did as she asked, clearly worried she was going to vomit.

Blue did not vomit. In fact, the first thing she did once the car was in park was kiss Richard Campbell Gansey the Third.

Something was alive in Blue, and it was frightened, realizing it had been a prisoner, desperate to get out.

When she finally pulled away, she tried her best to be clear.

“I know that you have had to adjust to the idea of not kissing me, or being with me…or even maybe being alive?” He shrugged in agreement, and she continued “But that’s been the last nine months. I have known my whole life that I would never be able to…do this, with anyone. Just to be safe I couldn’t do it with anyone and no matter what, no matter what I did or how I fought, I would never be able to do it with someone I love and now…”

She lifted her hands into the air to indicate her frustration.

“What now? I have all these thoughts, Gansey…and some are just heartbreakingly beautiful and some are really pretty dirty, if I’m being honest, and some are just too big for my heart to hold. It’s all very new. I never thought about having a romantic life, and now I have the option and life just seems…so much bigger than it ever did before.”

Gansey tried to crush down the small wave of panic but it burst out of him anyway.

“Are you saying, maybe you want something more…than this?”

“What? Are you insane, is that what you just heard me say? Jesus people keep telling you how smart you are, and you’ve got me believing it too, but really you're an idiot." She kissed him again, took in the scent of mint and soap and Gansey. "Gansey I love you, I am so in love with you, and I think you’re in love with me too since our love broke magic bounds and destroyed a demon!” Gansey breathed a sigh of relief.

“What I am saying is that I spent a long time trying to adjust to the idea of life without you, without anyone, and I never for a moment let myself dream of how perfect it could be, because it seemed just wretchedly unfair. Or I was worried I wouldn't be able to stop myself." She shuddered. "So now I have it and I think, I think it’s just going to take me a minute to adjust, so I guess I’m asking if we can go slowly. Please.” She looked at him, and she knew already what he would say but it didn’t make asking pointless. That was sort of the point. He kissed her again and they stayed like that, inside the Camaro, kissing and whispering words of love and elation and triumph.

“I love you,”

“We did it,”

“There’s so much more.”

 

 

Ronan woke up around 3am on the hard floor of the living room, curled delightfully around Adam Parrish. He smiled.

“Hey,” he said softly, touching Adam’s face.

“I have a bed that’s way comfier than this, come on we still have three hours before we have to be up for school.”

Adam followed Ronan silently into bed and they kiss in the darkness before falling back asleep.

When Adam opened his eyes again, the clock on the wall says 5:13 and Ronan looks like he is sleeping but Adam knew he’s wasn't.

Adam kissed Ronan’s collarbone and Ronan hummed as he did and said, “So I mean, does this make you gay, too?”

It is kind of a big question for 5:13 but Ronan is always full of surprises so Adam tried to wrap his head around it.

 

“I don’t think I am gay.” He said finally, and Ronan looked positively offended.

“I mean I am gay for you! I am super gay for you, I swear” Adam said, sliding in closer to the boy beside him and kissing his arm. Ronan looked pleased despite himself.

“I just think, I just think it’s never really been about gender to me. Honestly I don’t think I’ve ever even liked anyone, not anything like this, not anything even remotely resembling connection.”

“What about Blue?” Ronan asked, because Adam supposed it had to be asked.

“Blue…I think Blue was a prize. She was proof that I could have something Gansey couldn’t, that you couldn’t…My desire for Blue was selfish, it was about me it was never about her, and it makes me sick to think about because she is worth more than that, but I didn’t know…I had no idea that it was supposed to be, this.”

Adam breathed out a sigh.

Ronan didn’t speak but he played with Adam’s chest hair.

“What about you?” Adam asked, “Haven’t you ever had a straight crush?”

 

Ronan wrinkled his nose. “No. I’ve never liked girls, it wasn’t even that I always liked guys but I never thought about, it just sort of….it’s like trying to be attracted to a piece of art, I can see the appeal but I don’t want to sleep with it.” Ronan said, exasperated.

Adam laughed

“But I was…I had a best friend, when I was a kid.” Ronan continued, his voice far away and his eyes even farther. “She was beautiful, the smartest person I had ever met, she spoke every sentence like it was a verdict or a poem. We were best friends for years and years and I was madly in love with her. We decided were going to run away and rule a far away land. Mind you, this was a bit before puberty, I was probably 9 or 10 and probably still believed you had no choice but to get married to a lady, but it didn’t fucking matter she was by far the loveliest human I had ever met, up until that point in my life,” He added, side glancing at Adam who found the whole thing problematically endearing.

“So I didn’t really question it. We were meant to be, and I loved her. And then one day she was gone. She just, disappeared.”

“Disappeared? Like her family moved, or like she never existed to begin with.” Adam said, “like maybe you dreamt her too?”

As he said it, Ronan looked utterly unconvinced.

“I don’t think so because that’s my point, see. I tried to bring her back. You have no idea how much I wanted to save her, Adam, I really…I tried. I tried for a long time but all I got was Orphan Girl. Not copies and copies but always the same real Orphan girl. And she is…She is a bit like her in some ways, in some very strange ways, but she isn’t the same, not really. She just sort of occupies that form, the way that Cabeswater occupied a forest. It was easiest for my mind to see her, and it had to see her, I needed her, so it had to see her as that… familiar, trusting, helpless, lost. And so that’s what she is, that’s who she is. It took me a long time to understand that she needed me, too, just as much if not more.” Ronan looked sad, but not soul crushingly so, just weary and allowing himself to feel the hurt that he had earned. Adam decided not to make a comment about Real Orphan girl having hooves. He teased Ronan’s scalp with his finger instead.

“What was her name? The real girl? “Adam asked.

“Opal…Her name was Opal.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plot is happening! Time is moving forward! People are bonding, growing closer, testing their mettle. Henry is in this chapter! And Gansey maybe has a tiny crush on him idk. Lowkey Adam/Ronan being gay dads and Ronan gets real about God at one point and also holds hands with Blue. This is longer than I meant it to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not mine, just borrowing. Still unedited except by my tired eyes and I'm on a seriously outdated version of word that can't really autocorrect so, let me know if something needs fixing. Also comments are life and without them this story will definitely die.

Ronan did indeed drive Adam to school the next morning. They woke up early and drank black coffee in the kitchen of the farmhouse, bare feet cold on the stone floor. Ronan decided that sleepy Adam was his new favorite thing because sleepy Adam gave lazy kisses in between yawns and while Ronan had seen tired Adam and exhausted Adam, he had never seen sleepy Adam.  
His heart was on fire.  
Opal, she was Opal now, Adam wouldn’t stand for calling her Orphan Girl once he knew she had a name, was chasing Chainsaw around the house playfully, hurriedly eating the small feathers that she shed.  
“Can she like, be here by herself?” Adam watched the hooved child laugh and it should have sounded adorable but there was something ethereal and terrifying about it instead.  
Ronan looked a little uncomfortable, “I’m not really sure. I mean so far I’ve been trying not to leave her alone for more than 4 hours. And if anything happens, Chainsaw will find me.”  
He was obviously not very pleased with this, and Opal had moved away from Chainsaw to chew on the cord of an old wall phone.  
“Ronan, she’s a kid.” Adam said, exasperated.  
“Not exactly, I mean, she is and she isn’t. She doesn’t really understand our world, but she has been on her own for longer than you or I have been alive. She knows how to take care of herself, I wouldn’t leave her here if she didn’t.”  
And it was the truth because Ronan never lied.  
So Ronan drove Adam to school where his Shitbox was still parked and Ronan smirked as he thought about the car sitting there forever, Adam never riding in any other car besides Ronan’s. It filled him with light, that idea, despite its impracticality.  
They caught up with Henry and Gansey on the green.  
“Two days in a row, Lynch, color me impressed.” Henry said with a wide open smile. His eyes were dark but filled with light, like candles floating on dark water in the distance.  
Ronan just smirked, but with less venom than normal and shrugged. He didn’t have it in him to act surly today, in fact he was actually a little worried that if he didn’t pay attention he would end up walking around the halls of Aglionby with a shit eating grin on his face because he totally had sex with Adam last night.  
Or at least, the closest thing to sex he had ever had.  
Henry chuckled and looked back to Gansey.  
“So what do you think Dick Three? Are we on for after school?”  
“Yeah absolutely, I’ll meet you in the lot after last bell.”  
“What are you guys fucking with?” Ronan asked.  
“Henry wants to go over some information about gap years, I’ve been thinking about taking some time off to travel over summer, since, you know, I won’t be dead.” Gansey said this lightly, but the memory of his body crumpled and lifeless was still too raw for anyone else to find humorous so it got quiet and Gansey looked like he had mild indigestion.  
“I think that’s a good idea.” Adam said after a minute.  
“You guys wanna come too? Mrs. Woo makes some mean creamy baihe.” Henry asked.  
“Tempting, but I have to work after school.” Adam said.  
Ronan’s head snapped up. He had honestly forgotten that Adam still had to work. Ronan tried to push down what felt like unreasonable anger. He so wanted Adam to move in to The Barns. To stop working and stop worrying and only hang out barefoot in the kitchen and give him sleepy kisses. He knew he could never say any of this to Adam not only because the sentiment was embarrassing as fuck, but because Adam would never allow himself to be taken care of, not even by Ronan.  
“Ronan? You wanna come?” Henry asked.  
“I should go over to the Fox Hole, actually,” Ronan said, “Blue and I have some things we need to go over, and I have a feeling we’re going to need psychic backup.”  
Noah. Noah. Noah.  
Ronan didn’t want to forget, he wouldn’t forget.  
“Actually, Gansey will you text her and tell her I’m coming over after school?”  
Gansey did as Ronan asked and didn’t think it was weird because Ronan hated phones and was constantly making people text for him.  
The bell rang and the boys headed off toward class. Ronan was already doubting this decision. He wanted to be anywhere but here, the hours stretched ahead of him seemed endless and now he was worrying about Orph- about Opal, since his talk with Adam this morning. He had just silently resolved to leave after homeroom when he felt cool, rough fingers on his wrist. He stopped walking and met Adams eyes.  
“So uh, the Latin classroom is just being used for storage right now. Did you know that?”  
“That is completely new information, Parrish,” Ronan said, his eyes brightening, “But why the hell are you telling me?”  
Ronan’s skin was burning where Adam’s fingers brushed his arm.  
“Well, seeing as how no one will be in there, I thought maybe we could use it. To study.”  
“To study, yeah?” Ronan said, and he was smiling for real now.  
“Yeah I mean you can’t pretend you don’t need the practice. Your knowledge of Dtuch colonization of Africa is abysmal.”  
“Alright, asshole,” Ronan said, “When do you wanna study?”  
“After lunch, I have a free period. You have study hall but no one will be looking for you.”  
Ronan definitely didn’t notice that Adam had his schedule memorized.  
“True. I guess I could clock in a few minutes of… studying.” Ronan said.  
Adam looked around the hall. They were alone, for the most part, no one was hovering and no one was looking directly at them and Adam asked himself if he gave a shit either way. His stomach did a complicated twist so he kissed Ronan quickly and quietly, and then walked into homeroom without even looking at the stupid grin that had definitely split across his face.

 

Gansey and Henry arrived at Litchfield house just as Koh and Cheng2 were leaving to go to their indoor track meet. Mrs. Woo had indeed been baking and the house smelled tangy and foreign and sweet when they entered it. They hung up coats and kicked off shoes and headed up to Henry’s room.  
Gansey had never been in Henry’s room before, and he felt kind of stupid that he was immediately, completely obsessed with it.  
Henry’s room was large, easily as big as Gansey’s room at Monmouth. The walls were dark grey and the baseboards and crown molding were metallic gold. There was a huge window, eight by ten feet, across one wall and it looked out into the woods. The sun was already starting to set, so golden light was filtering in through the panes, giving a perception of warmth that was in no way accurate to the crisp November evening.  
There was a large bed, splashes of black and white against one wall, and a third was covered in dark shelving that held picture frames, albums on vinyl, several trophies and a massive collection of books in, from what Gansey could see, Mandarin, Korean, French, Latin and English. There were three skateboard decks stacked along the wall, a few pairs of sneakers, as clean and crisp as if they had never bee worn, and a backpack, basketball and coat on the floor.  
It smelled vaguely like honey and oolong tea, which Gasney credited more to Mrs. Woo than Henry, but the smell was still sharp and pleasant and overall very Henry-like.  
Robobee buzzed around the lights coming through the window, chasing dust motes.  
Gansey loved it.  
“Go ahead man, have a seat on the bed. You want anything to drink?”  
“Iced tea?” Gansey asked.  
“You got it, Dick.” Henry smiled and slipped back out of the room.  
Gansey sat on the bed. Everything in here was immaculate. Gansey even suspected that Henry had gone out of his way to put the shoes and the backpack and the ball on the floor, to try and give an impression of I don’t care how messy my room is bro, when clearly there was nothing in this space that was deliberately out of place.  
That was Henry though, Gansey thought. Every aspect of his image was cultivated. It was carefully selected depending on who he would be with, who he was trying to impress, to avoid, to seduce. It was always planned out, and Gansey supposed it had to be. Henry was forced to deal with so many preconceived notions, he had to fight to be seen for who he was rather than what others assumed he would be.  
Gansey could relate.

Henry came back upstairs with two glasses of iced tea that tasted nothing like the tea at Nino’s and not really like any tea he had ever had before, but he didn’t mind, it was spicy and tangy and perfect.  
Henry came and sat down next to Gansey.  
Henry was tall.  
Gansey was not tall but he was not short, he was somewhere around 5’10, which made him two inches shorter than Adam and three and a half inches shorter than Ronan and a full ten inches taller than his girlfriend, who was indeed a pygmy tyrant.  
Henry was probably the same height as Ronan, but to Gansey he seemed…larger. Not even in size, but in presence, which was sort of remarkable since Ronan spent so much time trying to take up space, make noise, be seen, be terrifying.  
Henry was also able to command a room immediately, and he always did it with grace and elegance and conviction. Henry always had a purpose, a mission. Someone he was helping, some cause he was committed to, a project he was spearheading.  
Gansey was so singularly minded that this concept was alien and beautiful.  
For so long it had been Glendower, Glendower, Glendower. And then in the last year it went something like Glendower, Blue, Glendower, Blue.  
Everything revolved around that for Gansey, and he was a little bit ashamed of how narrow sighted he could be. He had completely missed his two best friends falling in love right next to him. He hadn’t even noticed that something was really different until the night Ronan told them he had dreamt Cabeswater.  
Gansey remembered distinctly the moment when he realized that Adam knew things about Ronan, deep, personal things, that Gansey himself didn’t know. When did that start happening? When did someone else figure out how to get to Ronan Lynch?  
Gansey had been so sure that Ronan was going to flip, that he was going to start screaming horrible things at Adam and throwing things but he didn’t. He had looked betrayed, all anger stymied by Adam.  
There was a language between Ronan and Adam that Gansey didn’t speak.  
He realized that not only had Ronan confessed that he had dreamt Cabeswater, but Adam had also known about Matthew.  
Later that night, Adam had confessed that he had been kissing Ronan Lynch and Gansey felt stupid because he was genuinely still surprised. When he backtracked and looked at all the little pieces, it was very clear that Ronan and Adam had been, well doing whatever they were doing, for months.  
It was a lot of information to take in and Gansey hadn’t been able to process all of it until later. When he was with Blue, driving her home to nurse her eye, he said, “Ronan dreamt Cabeswater.”  
“It actually makes sense. I mean, all of Ronan’s dream things, the trees, the flowers, the ravens. I wouldn’t have guessed it either, but I mean it fits.”  
She clipped back a piece of loose hair.  
“But Ronan dreamt Matthew…” Gansey said, breathing out a huge sigh.  
“Yeah that’s definitely a new king of different. Also Ronan told Adam about it before he told you. D’you wanna talk about that?” Blue said, and it could have easily been an insult but it wasn’t and he knew why, and he knew that Blue knew why even though he doubted either Adam or Ronan had told her what they were up to.  
“Kinda, I mean Ronan is my best friend.” Gansey said, looking over at Blue with an implied besides you.  
“Why do you think he told Adam then? Or when, or where or what do you think they might have been doing?” Blue was trying not to smile, she really was, but she started laughing hysterically and she looked so perfect in the dim light of the car with one eye stitched up and ripped clothing.  
Gansey laughed too.  
“So you know?” He said.  
“I’ve been watching this train coming since it was 100 miles up the coast.” Blue said. “I was just sort of waiting for everyone else to figure it out.”  
“I am always the last to know. Is ‘everyone else’ just a nice way of saying me?” Gansey said, slightly offended.  
“Honestly, ‘everyone else’ was mostly Adam and Ronan and then, yes, also you.” She was smiling, shaking her head slightly in bewilderment.  
And Gansey wasn’t mad, he didn’t have any of the feelings he would have thought would come with realizing that your best friend tells their deepest secrets to someone else now, because he knew what it was like to love someone this way and all he wanted was Ronan to feel that, for Adam to feel that too. He just wished he had been more aware. He had been so consumed with his own issues, his quest, his girlfriend, his own death (at the hands of said girlfriend). He hadn’t been paying attention to anything.  
Henry was certainly paying attention. To Gansey, to the careful stacks of catalogues and brochures, to Robobee humming above them. The light coming through the window made Henry’s face a study in angles. He was beautiful, elegant in the way Adam was and he was sharp as well but not in the way Ronan was, the lines of his face were straight and smooth and led you inward to the essence of Henry. He wasn’t a warning sign he was a welcome sign.  
His eyes were thin and dark, but they caught the light whenever Henry moved his face toward the setting sun and looked like small galaxies floating into life.  
“So, what do you think?” Henry was looking at Gansey, waiting for an answer.  
“About what?” Gansey asked. He had been totally spaced out. Actually he had been totally staring at Henry Cheng and mentally comparing his eyes to galaxies. That was embarrassing.  
“Sorry man, I’ve been a little out of it since, well you know. Dying.”  
He would have to stop throwing that around. He knew it made his friends uncomfortable, and the truth was it made him uncomfortable too but he was trapped like a deer in the headlights because Henry was sort of smirking at him.  
“I was saying that if we kept it national, we could take a road trip across the entire country. It wouldn’t even be unaffordable. We could spend an extra 4-6 months in the states than we could on the same budget to Europe. It leaves us a lot of room for spontaneous adventuring.”  
Henry knew that money wasn’t really an object to Gansey because it wasn’t really an object to Henry either. If Gansey wanted to, he could have a helicopter here tomorrow to take him anywhere he wanted to go and when he got there, he could stay anywhere he wanted or he could buy a small hotel and live in it, it wouldn’t make much of a difference to him. He had turned 18, he was on track to graduate, and his inheritance would be his before the left Henrietta.  
Henry also knew that Blue was not going to stand by and let Gansey throw money away, so that the idea of being able to stretch a budget and plan out an economic route would make her infinitely more comfortable with the idea of Gansey and Henry almost completely funding this trip.  
Not for the first time, Gansey felt known.  
But he felt known as himself and he also felt know as Blue, which was  
strange. It wasn’t that he knew that Blue would have felt known, he felt known for  
Blue, he felt known as Blue.  
“This is perfect, Henry. Seriously, we can probably even start along the ley lines and track them west if we wanted. I don’t know if Jane will go for it,” He said, looking out the window as darkness settled. “I think she kind of wants to be done with this whole ley line fiasco. She’s thinking about espresso and handmade goods at foreign farmers markets and sleeping under the stars far away from magical forests, and dead kings and magica cavernous tombs.” Gansey tried not to sound disappointed, which he was normally rather good at, but Henry seemed to catch it anyway.  
He said, “Look, just because you stop looking for magic doesn’t mean it stops finding you. Some things want to be found. And it certainly seems like a lot of things want to be found you, Dick Gansey the Third.”  
Gansey could not argue this, so he didn’t.  
Henry put on music and they looked at pictures of ridiculously cheery white kids parading through Tibet or washing elephants or skydiving in Peru. There were other ones as well, teenagers performing surgery in South America or helping rebuild villages that were damaged in earthquakes or floods.  
“Blue would love this.” Henry said and he laughed.  
“Oh god, don’t show her, please? She will have building houses the entire time we’re away.”  
“Think about how buff you would get though?” Henry said, laughing and grabbed Ganseys arm playfull. “Actually Dick, not bad. All that rowing pays off doesn’t it?”  
“I think I’d take rowing over building houses.” Gansey said in what he prayed was a casual tone because while normally someone touching his arm wouldn’t really phase him and normally even if it did, he wouldn’t show it, normally people couldn’t read him the way Henry Cheng could and Gansey suddenly felt dizzy.  
“You okay?” Henry asked.  
“Yeah, sorry, I’m fine. Like I said everything up here’s been a little…screwy.” He shrugged. He wanted to make up something about feeling like Blue needed him and leaving to go see her, but he thought if he played it off as some psychic connection Henry would definitely come and really, Blue didn’t need Gansey. Right now Gansey needed Blue.  
Gansey closed his eyes and remembered her in a toga, in this house, in the stairs, her body pressed against his.  
He felt better.  
“Okay well, it looks we have the start of a plan. Now we just have to see if we can convince Jane to let us do more fun things than charity things.” He said, his composure restored without a missing beat.  
“Hey man, you’re trying your luck on the wrong guy, I think it would be awesome to do some activism while we’re abroad! Or while we’re still in our own political domain, whatever, you know what I mean.”  
Gansey laughed and shook his head.  
“That’s our angle! We can drive across the nation and spread the truth about feminism and reproductive equality!” Henry said valiantly. “Come on, Gansey boy, what do you think Blue would say?”  
Henry was right. Gansey knew Henry was right. Blue would love it. She could fight with everyone all day long and know that she was right the whole time. It was a dream for her.  
Known, known.  
They spent another hour flipping and planning and then they listened to music and ordered pizza and came up with absolutely ridiculous pranks to pull on Blue on the road.

 

Ronan was at 300 Fox Way. Ronan had known that they were going to need help on this. And Ronan remembered Noah Czerny.  
He had some pretty strong convictions about witchcraft in general, but as far as he was concerned if he looked at the line in Catholicism that divided good and evil, saint and sinner, Ronan was definitely, absolutely going to Hell.  
First of all, God was not really into the gay thing.  
Ronan didn’t know what to make of this.  
He absolutely believed in God.  
He also wanted so badly to believe in a God that would not want him to feel like he was dying, a God that wouldn’t want him to hate himself. Ronan needed to believe that God wanted him to have love, otherwise it was not that God didn’t exist, but rather that he did exist and he was evil.  
Either way he figured it was a coin toss on the Hell thing, but it was hard to put an idea like that behind you after you’d seen the Devil.  
So Ronan had some pretty strong convictions about God despite, or in spite of, or perhaps because of, his longstanding relationship with shame. There was something in Ronan’s mind that whispered bad bad bad whenever he thought about psychics. It was also the same voice that whispered bad bad bad whenever he brushed against Adam and felt the heat from the other boy’s body pulse through his own.  
This voice was becoming quieter, although it was not gone.  
But Ronan remembered. Ronan promised Noah to remember.

So he was here, at 300 Fox Way. They were in Blue’s bedroom, and Ronan had to admit he kind of liked it. It was sort of a fucking mess, but in a very careful and deliberate way. Everything was positioned so that it related to and harmonized with the other things near it. The branches of a cardboard tree twisted off the wall into 3D and were draped with silk ribbon and thin gold chains that led up to the ceiling, each glued in a different place. There were glow in the dark stars against the sides of the furniture and bed that whispered stories of a tiny Blue, well tinier than she was now which was still very small, who must have asked questions incessantly and demanded answers. She was indeed, Ronan thought, incredibly fierce.

He had looked at Blue a lot. He understood what Gansey and Adam found attractive about her. She was compact and curvy, all of her edges were soft and warm and smooth brown skin. She always smelled like flowers and you knew exactly what she was thinking as soon as she cut her eyes on you.  
She was indeed a remarkable creature. Beautiful, intelligent, impressively loyal. She was, in her own way, a dream thing, a piece of art.  
Ronan had no fucking desire to sleep with her, ever.  
Ronan wasn’t sure if this was an ‘all girls thing’ which, it probably was, but maybe it was like a ‘just friends’ thing because he was definitely gay and he didn’t want to sleep with Gansey either.  
He had thought about it, okay. But he also thought about sleeping with Blue. And with Jonah Milo, his English teacher…but actually that one was, okay that’s different. He has this weird Indiana Jones thing going on. Not the same at all.

“Where do we start?” Blue asked, sitting next to Ronan but he didn’t know so he didn’t answer.  
“I think we should just talk, maybe record it so we can have it in case,” She trailed off. In case we start forgetting later.  
“Yeah okay.” Ronan nodded but he felt sick.  
“Okay, tell me what you remember about Noah?”  
So Ronan and Blue started talking. They told the stories of the first time they met Noah, when Ronan moved into Monmouth and when Blue had met the boys at Nino’s. They talked about Noah before they could tell he was dead, they talked about how different it was once the truth had been said out loud.  
“That’s the thing about a truth,” Ronan said, “Once it’s out there you can’t unmake it. It just is.”  
Blue thought about how she could argue that if it was always the truth, it was never anything else to begin with, but that was a lie. Noah had been more before they knew he was dead, whether it was their perception of him or his own energy or the ley line and his body placement or something else entirely, she wasn’t sure.  
“Is that what this is?” Blue asked. “Learning something and not being able to unsee it? Was Noah’s absence the truth and everything else our perception of it? The ley line shaping what we needed to save Gansey?”  
“Noah was the truth.” Ronan said with conviction, and Blue knew that the spike of fear in his voice was reflex.  
Cabeswater had a way of taking their requests literally and although they weren’t in Cabeswater and Cabeswater didn’t really exist at the moment, Ronan had spent too much time on the dreamline to forget to be careful.  
She took Ronan’s hands in hers and they leaned back against the wall her bed was pushed against. She told him the story of her first kiss, how Noah had offered because he couldn’t be killed twice. How she had cried in his arms after.  
Ronan told Blue how his grief for Noah was no less sharp than the grief for his father, but stranger and so much quieter. He told her he had to make peace with it. That he had gone to Cabeswater alone after they brought Noah’s bones back and prayed over them.  
He didn’t say what he was thinking. That maybe Noah was in Heaven.  
He didn’t think Noah could have done anything to put him in Hell, so he didn’t worry about it as much.  
They talked and they talked and they recorded all of it until Blue’s phone died and they were starving so they went downstairs and Ronan ate something with butter and something with bacon and Blue ate yogurt and made tea.

 

Adam got out of work at 5:00 and it was already dark and he was exhausted. School was hard enough with his workload, on top of limited sleep (which he wasn’t really complaining about) and then working at the garage after school. He wanted nothing more than to go home, shower until his skin was red from the heat, and sleep as long as possible.  
Adam could not bring himself to do this.  
Instead he climbed into his car and drove out to the Barns. He was pretty sure that Ronan was still with Blue, and he trusted Ronan to know what Opal needed but he couldn’t really shake the idea of her being there alone. He was worried about her. She regularly ate feathers and Styrofoam for crying out loud.  
The house was dark. Fireflies still floated across the yard, now bone white and crunchy with frost.  
Adam wondered for a minute if he would even be able to get inside, but when he tried the door it was open. He turned on some lights, started to make tea and called out for Opal.  
She came to him immediately. As soon as he looked down, there she was.  
She was so very otherly, this little child. Her eyes were huge and wet, the hood of her oversized sweater stopping just above her eyebrows. She was so young, and yet completely ageless.  
Of all the things about Opal that were strange, none was more strange than her Ronaness. There was no other word for it, she was very Ronany. It wasn’t so much a physical thing, as it was an essence thing. She hurt when he hurt and also when he didn’t, because she had lived in his fears constantly and without Ronan’s walls to protect her. She was terrified and Adam felt the same drive to comfort her that he felt toward Ronan. It wasn’t the same kind of desire; it was the same exact desire. He couldn’t bare her suffering. It was the worst thing in the world.  
“What did you do all day?” He asked her, crouching down.  
“I was alone.” She said, “Sometimes the bird exists but not all the time.”  
Her use of the word exists did not escape Adam. He filed this information away for later.  
“You’re not alone now, I’m here.” He said.  
Her lips turned up slightly and her shoulders dropped.  
“Do you wanna play a game?” He asked. He had no idea what kind of game he could possibly play with her, but it seemed like the sort of thing you say to a child.  
“I don’t know any games.” She said.  
“Me either.” He admitted, a little sadly. “But I do know some stories. Do you want to tell you some?” He asked.  
She lit up at this, nodding slowly.  
So Adam made tea and noodles and he and Opal sat down on the couch under one of the giant blankets to eat. And Adam told her stories.  
“There once was a goddess named Persephone, she was very beautiful and very curious. One day she wandered too far from home and was taken by King Hades to the underworld.” Adam said. Opal’s eyes were wide.  
“He tricked her into eating fruit there, and once she did she wasn’t allowed to ever leave.”  
Opal looked like she knew how this story ended, and she wasn’t pleased. She twisted her hands together.  
“Persephone was devastated, she wanted to go home so badly. She didn’t want to stay in the underworld.”  
“What happened?” Opal asked.  
“Hades fell in love with her.” Adam said. “And once you love someone, you never want to see them hurt. So he made a deal with her mother Demiter and allowed Persephone to return home for half the year, every Summer and Autumn. And her mother, she is so overjoyed that she makes the sun shine and the crops grow, and the harvest come.”  
“But Persephone has to go back?” Opal asked.  
“Yes, half of the time she can wander the earth and be with her mother, and half of the time, winter and spring, she must stay with Hades in the underworld.”  
“Does she love him?” Opal asked.  
“I don’t know, it’s an old story. There are a lot of different ways to tell a story that old. But I like to think she does.” Adam shivered. He said, “I think she loves her mother, and she loves Hades. But the problem with that is, wherever she goes, she’s going to be missing someone. Even when she’s with the person she missed, she will miss the other one.”  
“Why can’t they all live together?” Opal asked, leaning against Adam.  
“Some worlds can’t exist in the same place.”  
“Like the dreaming and this above?” Opal asked.  
Adam thought about the real Persephone, how much he still needed her guidance, how she had still come to help him after her death.  
“Exactly, Opal.”  
She nodded as if she had expected this.  
Just then the door opened and Ronan came in.  
“Parrish, you breaking and entering now too?” Ronan said, walking past the couch into the kitchen and reemerging with a bowl of noodles.  
“Scooch” He said to Opal and she shuffled closer to Adam so Ronan could fit next to her on the couch with his legs criss-crossed.  
“I think your security is seriously busted, Lynch, anyone can just walk right in here. It was wide open.”  
“No.” Ronan said the word and then closed his mouth tightly, so thin it was a line.  
Adam’s heart skipped, he tried to backtrack. “I just, I worried about Opal you know, and it really was unlocked man,”  
“It wasn’t unlocked. I locked it-” Ronan said.  
“I’m not kidding Ronan,” Adam was worried now, he didn’t want to fight with Ronan but also he was ready for it, waiting for a chance to get his hit in. “I don’t want to do this.”  
“No Adam, it’s not, it’s not a normal lock, it doesn’t have a key.” Ronan said, clenching and unclenching his fist as he met Adam’s eyes.  
“It just opens for family.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is pretty much mostly smut of the Bluesy variety. Other things happen. It's getting like, super cold in Henrietta. Gansey confronts Ronan about whether or not he's having butt sex with Adam. Blue wears Aglionby clothes. And then like I said, smut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still just borrowing.

Blue was examining her scar in the mirror. She had actually thought she wouldn’t have one, before Adam ripped her stiches out. Okay well, not Adam. Adam’s hands had been controlled by the demon. She would have to remember to thank him for making her look cooler. It was indeed a very cool scar.

 

Blue sighed and examined her reflection in the mirror. She didn’t really look any different than she had a year ago, but she was a thousand years older and though she might not be able to see it, she could sense it. This was not Blue Sargent, sensible child, this was Blue Sargent, magician, Blue Sargent, tree spirit. Blue Sargent with a boyfriend, whom she loved _and_ who she was allowed to kiss.

That, more than anything, was impossible for her to reconcile. More than finding herself significantly less sensible than she had always believed, more than losing Persephone, who had been her family for her whole life, more than realizing that she was indeed a little in love with all of her Raven Boys, and that she was pretty sure they were all somehow connected now, through Gansey and in a deeper way.

 

But still, even the most extreme magic wasn’t as weird to Blue as kissing Gansey.

 

It was sort of like this; all your life your legs didn’t work. You didn’t really beat yourself up about it. Yes it’s a shit hand to draw, but that’s life. It could certainly be better, but also it could be worse and Blue was not one to dwell on things she couldn’t have. So she thought about kissing or being in love the way a paraplegic might think about walking, with a little bit of anger, a rush of longing, and then the slamming of a lid on that box of feelings. It did nothing good to long senselessly for things you couldn’t have.

 

So Blue didn’t think about it, pretty much ever, until she met Gansey. At first she had really been trying not to fall in love with him. She wondered if she would have fallen in love with him if she hadn’t known it was fated, and the answer is undoubtedly ‘ _duh’._

So when she had finally admitted to herself that she had feelings for Gansey she had done everything in her power to put those thoughts away, to not let herself think of Gansey beyond wanting to stay best friends with him, wanting to keep the quiet love they already had and one day maybe perhaps have carnal knowledge of him. If she put it like that, it didn’t seem like a big thing to ask for. It didn’t seem like a big thing.

 

But it was, it was a huge thing, even if there had never been a curse, it still would have been a pretty big thing and overcoming the fact that you resigned yourself to a life without sex was not something you got over in a week no matter how badly your body was screaming at you.

 

Blue had thought about.

 

_I mean come on._

 

She had thought about what Gansey would look like naked, what he might taste like, what it would be like to hear him panting as he fumbled against her skin. She so wanted him to touch her. She had thought about the touching thing a lot.

 

_Maybe it’s just kissing that will kill him, maybe we can still do things. Maybe if we just, don’t put lips against lips maybe he can put his mouth other places._

 

She had burned with the thought and couldn’t help but touch herself while thinking about it.

 

It’s not that Blue never masturbated, she did. Usually to stories online or sometimes videos and occasionally for no reason at all like while reading Wikipedia entries about the war of 1812 or thinking about how stressful her shift at Nino’s had been.

 

She had never thought about anyone real, anyone she knew before. It was different and she was immediately filled with shame and then guilt over feeling shame in the first place, because it was her body and she could do whatever she damn well pleased.

 

But it wasn’t about that, it wasn’t the act of _doing_ it that made her feel so terrible, but rather what it did to her heart, because then she had to go look at Gansey for real. After the first time, she had felt her heart turn to ice when he brushed against her because she was terrified she wouldn’t be able to stop herself, she would lose control and lose herself in the smell of mint or in his hands on her neck or his thigh against hers.

 

So she turned it off. When Maura and Calla tried to talk to her about a life after Gansey she had wanted to be sick. It hadn’t really occurred to her that once she actually did kill her true love, she would be free to live a semi-normal (she guessed) life with regular boys and regular dating. But that seemed cruel; it seemed soulless and dark. It didn’t seem anything like Gansey against the windows at Monmouth or pressing his thumb to his bottom lip while listening to Mallory rant on the phone or the way the muscles in his throat and arms worked when he had to slip into President Dick mode. It was just another thought she turned off.

 

Blue was cold. It was freezing in the house, the heat was on the fritz again the world outside was slowly solidifying into winter. It was only a week from Thanksgiving.

 

Blue took a deep breath. She was oscillating between this intense desire to reevaluate herself, and wanting to run to Gansey right now and have as much carnal knowledge of him as she pleased. It was a little much. She decided that she was absolutely going to do some stuff with Gansey, definitely. And She would do it slowly and see how it made her feel, and that would feel right because it’s Gansey. Right? She sighed. She pulled on dark red tights and a skirt she made from white tulle. She had a long sleeve grey thermal under a white see through tank top and she threw on an Aglionby sweater (probably Ronan’s, since he had been here last) and headed downstairs. She took her coat off the hook and started walking.

 

Her fingers were cold, so she stuffed them in her pockets and kicked her black doc’s against some frozen mud. She needed air.

 

How could a year change so much? How could Blue live her life in one way for so long, and suddenly be a different creature all together?

 

Blue was worried about Gansey. He had been acting strange, and of his own volition he was feeling off since the bargain with Cabeswater. It was to be expected, I mean, he was now half forest and ¼ Gansey and ¼ all his friends? She wasn’t sure exactly how it was working, but she knew that she sensed subtle differences in Gansey.

 

It was the way he transitioned from each version of himself. It used to be smoother, hardly noticeable to anyone who didn’t speak Gansey fluently. But he kept getting tripped on little things. He couldn’t effortlessly hide everything that he was feeling the way he could before. He had seemed a little less sure of himself, a little bit quicker to anger.

 

Was this their fault? Was this Gansey channeling the negative aspects of his friends, of herself? She hoped not, but she shivered anyway either from the cold or the unsettling feeling of knowing you’re right and wishing you weren’t.

 

Goddamn it was cold. She checked her iPhone, a recent gift from Gansey, because as he said, he really just wanted to talk to her all the time and frankly, she couldn’t argue with that? (Also, emergences.) She pulled out the phone and saw that it was 24 degrees. Wait 24 degrees? In November? In Virginia? It probably wasn’t unheard of, but it was certainly much colder than any fall day she could recall.

 

She had left with intention of walking to Monmouth, the setting sun and the creeping chill made her change her mind.

 

She pulled out her phone, dialed, let it ring.

“Take me somewhere?” She said.

 

 

 

 

Technically, Gansey lived alone now. Ronan had moved into The Barns and Adam lived at his apartment at the church. Gansey was sure that he had not always just lived with Ronan, and then the logical part of his brain went “Noah” but he couldn’t remember what Noah looked like or what they had done together, how they had met. He could feel the space where the memories used to be, like the scar tissue over where his wisdom teeth had been pulled a few years before. Raised and unnatural, but immovable.

 

So now it was mostly just Gansey. It was quiet and he missed Ronan terribly and he told him this when Ronan had come over a few days ago, first in regular teen boy speak by teasing him about being a teenage father and then with sincerity.

 

“The fuck do you want me to do about it? I can’t just move back in.” Ronan had said.

 

Gansey wanted to tell him that he had to sell Monmouth, but it wasn’t a conversation he was ready to have. He didn’t know if he ever would be. It would be reasonable for him to do whatever he wished with the money, and the story of an investment opportunity arising at Aglionby wasn’t much of a stretch, but his friends would never buy it.

 

“Look I’m just saying, it’s a huge place to have all to myself.” Gansey didn’t say, _I don’t want to be alone,_ but it was shimmering underneath everything.

 

“Why don’t you ask your girlfriend to stay with you?” Ronan said, smirking.

 

“Why, is your boyfriend living with you?” Gansey asked, his tone as light as ever but the words were heavy with real emotional investment. Gansey was nervous for Ronan, for Adam too, but when you smashed too things against each other the harder one always won, and Ronan was wicked and he was burning but he was a soft thing.

 

“He’s not my boyfriend.” Ronan said, maybe a little disappointed.

“Oh, you have other guys your making out with in empty classrooms and parking lots at school then?”

To his credit, Ronan didn’t flinch. He was very good at not flinching. But his ears definitely went pink.

“Okay, I’m not even going to ask how you-“

“Oh please, you think I’m gonna buy that you’re suddenly invested in your academic career?” There was a bite to it that Gansey normally wouldn’t have let slip, but Ronan heard it. Gansey was worried that again his words would be weapons and Ronan would turn on him, angry and closed off.

 

“I’m only making out with Parrish.” Ronan said, and then smirked “Correction, Parrish is the only person I’m making out with, but we definitely don’t ‘only’ make out.” Ronan spit a Cheshire Cat grin. It was smug and a little cold and Gansey was eternally thankful for a smile instead of a battle.

If Ronan was thinking he could throw Gansey off or that the other boy would brush away his comment, he was wrong.

 

“So I mean, I still get to ask right? Like if this were a chick I would want you to tell me exactly what that means and I feel like I should extend our existing bro code to your current sexual orientation?” Gansey said, all casual.

 

Ronan did make a face at this. It was as if someone had asked him to list every species in the Phylum Chordata in latin; a little like he had to struggle to find the words and a little like he didn’t want to talk about it but also secretly delighted to show off his skills.

It was that kind of face.

 

Ronan doesn’t say anything, so Gansey went on.

“Look, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I’m just saying, I’m asking I guess, so if you want to talk about you can talk to me about it. If you want.”

Definitely casual.

“Do you really want to know?”

 

Gansey did _really_ want to know. Part of was the same curiosity he would have felt finding out any of his friends had done something sexual, the rush of heat pooling into a smile and sting of jealousy. But some of it was deeper because this was a _different_ kind of thing, and he was genuinely curious about what the hell Adam and Ronan did together and whether or not they were like, actually having sex, or doing other stuff like hand stuff? Mouth stuff? I mean did they really do that?

 

Thinking bout Adam and Ronan together wasn’t weird but thinking about _anyone_ fucking was always strange and I mean…it was Ronan, he just couldn’t imagine that he ever shed his snake skin, even in the most intimate places.

 

“Yes.” He said, and met Ronan’s eyes to let him know he meant it.

“Why?” Ronan asked.

“I don’t know dude, curiosity?”

Ronan’s eyebrows inched ever closer to his hairline.

He didn’t say anything and Gansey thought that maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned it, but Ronan sighed and said.

“Okay fine, Dick. What do you wanna know?”

“Well, are you having sex with him?”

Ronan’s eyes were wide and his hands actually came up to his face.

“Oh my god, Gansey.”

“What! Come on, this cannot be more embarrassing than the videos your parents made me watch of you in those Irish music competitions, lovely though your voice is.”

And now Ronan was bright red.

“Fuck, dude, I don’t know. I mean like, we’re not having _sex_ like _butt sex,_ kind of sex.” He can’t believe he was saying this, and if it had been anyone other than Gansey who asked him he would have punched him in the face. Ronan didn’t say “ _butt sex”_ like it was gross, which Gansey definitely noticed.

 

“So you’re still a virgin then,” Gansey said, a little smugly.

“Okay, relax, yeah I’m a virgin, technically.”

“Technically?” Gansey’s eyebrows moved up his forehead. “What’s compromising the technical integrity of your virginity?” He said through a laugh.

 

Ronan covered his face with his hands, “You’re such an asshole. Look okay, Parrish and I it’s just, it’s new. I think it’s not gonna happen all at once, the first night we hooked up we couldn’t do anything besides just kiss and... I don’t know, just be together.” He shrugged, his face was open and tilted to the side.

 

Gansey nodded.

 

“And it’s different, you don’t understand.” Ronan continued, his shoulders pulling up to his ears and his hands in fists. “I lived with my desires as nightmares forever. I was convinced that this thing, what I feel for guys, for _Adam_ , it would be the thing that bought my one-way ticket to Hell. It didn’t even matter if I lived or died or sinned because I was pretty much fucking doomed, as far as I figured.”

 

Gansey wanted to argue Ronan’s sense of self worth, but it was unusual for Ronan to give this much information’s so he just listened.

 

“So it’s like, it’s not just like I can jump into it. And it’s new for him too because I don’t think he really ever thought about guys, so the whole revelation of being into one is…new.” Ronan sighed, shaking his head.

 

New. Very new indeed.

 

“So…” Gansey said, smiling even though he _really_ was trying not to, “That isn’t really an answer though, more like a justification on why you’re a still a virgin.”

 

Ronan shot daggers at Gansey with his eyes.

 

“Alright shithead,” Ronan said and he’s not feeling embarrassed anymore. He looked pretty smug.

“We jerk each other off a lot, it’s like most of what we do. Either my hands on his dick or his hands on my dick or both our dicks together in one of ours hands”

 

Gansey had asked, he still didn’t know what he was expecting but it wasn’t Ronan saying things “his hands on my dick” and he didn’t expect it to sound…hot?

“Parrish sucked me off, like, our second night together, and I tried to do it to him the other day when we were hooking up in the empty Latin classroom but he wouldn’t let me.”

This was obviously bothering Ronan, but Gansey had no idea how to make him feel better.

What could he even say? _Don’t worry bro, I’m sure you’ll get to suck his dick soon._

“It’s only been like, what a week?” Gansey said, “I think you’re right, it’s new, it’s gonna take a little bit of time.”

 

Ronan didn’t say anything but he shrugged lightly and seemed overall pretty at peace with the whole thing, which was somehow even stranger than Ronan being gay in the first place.

 

“Why do you want to know, anyway?” Ronan said, side eyeing Gansey, “You thinking about switching teams? You’re girlfriend will definitely not like that.”

 

Gansey rolled his eyes and didn’t bother to comment, but he did slip involuntarily into a memory of Henry, laughing on his bed and putting his long pale hands on Gansey’s arm.

 

No, she would not like that. Not at all.

 

“Don’t worry, I won’t take Parrish from you,” Gansey winked.

“Go ahead and try motherfucker.” Adam said.

Gansey laughed and shook his head because this easy-going, possessive, super gay Ronan was kind of the best thing ever.

 

 

 

 

Gansey pulled up to 300 Fox way and found Blue outside looking ridiculously perfect in what was probably a home made skirt and dark red tights that made her legs look strong and sleek and a puffy brown jacket.

 

“Sorry to bother you miss, but you look awful cold out there.” He rolled leaned out of the side of the Camaro and his eyes lighted over Blue. She got into the car beside him and rubbed her hands together.

 

“Winter showed up a little early, don’t you think?” She said, trying to bring life back into her numb fingers.

 

Gansey took her hands in his and rubbed them, letting the heat from his own hands soak into her.

She sighed happily.

“Why didn’t you wait inside?”

“It was cold in there too. No point.”

“It seems like lately it’s been cold everywhere. Monmouth was freezing too.”

“Global warming?” Blue asked.

“Or coincidence.” Gansey said, because it never was.

Cabeswater was gone, and as far as they could tell it had been in Henrietta in some form for a very, very long time. So it stood to reason that some things might seem unbalanced, to say the least.

 

“It doesn’t feel like magic. It just feels cold.” Blue said, and Gansey’s heart physically hurt. His hands tightened on the wheel.

“Do you miss it?” He asked, “Magic?”

She was quiet for a moment.

“I don’t, I don’t think it’s gone, Gansey.” She looked up at him as he drove.

“I mean, I know that the hunt for Glendower is over, and so I know for you more than anyone else, it feels like the end of something huge, something monumental. I know that, and if I haven’t been validating it enough, I’m sorry.”

“No Blue, you don’t need to apologize,” He said.

“But seriously I was just so happy to have you alive, I couldn’t care about Glendower or about Cabeswater because in the end I would gladly trade them both for you, over and over and over if I had to.”

 

Gansey pulled The Pig into Monmouth but didn’t turn the car off. It was too cold to sit without heat. He turned to face Blue, who wasn’t done speaking.

 

“Gansey, I am so, so sorry. I know how much you wanted more than this, I know that coming out ‘not dead at least’ is not that goal you’ve had in mind since you started this quest as a second chance at life. It is okay to feel like you got screwed here, and it’s okay to feel really selfish for saying it because you get to be selfish, this is about you. This is what you wanted, the thing you wanted most with your life, and I know how much it must hurt that in the end, the treasure was missing.”

 

“Blue, stop,” Gansey said, taking her hands again.

“The treasure was _not_ missing. Yes, this mission was my whole world for a long time but it was never just about Glendower or about the favor, it was about magic. It was about adventure and discovery. It was about feeling like I belonged somewhere, finally, in Henrietta and with Ronan and Adam, even though I couldn’t understand why _here_ of all places. I can’t believe I even have to tell you this.”

 

He sighed and then laughed a little and cupped her face, “You’re my treasure, don’t you get that? From the moment I met you that’s the only thing I wanted. And not like, to just have as mine, that’s not what I mean. I just mean a world where _we both_ have that choice. A world where I wasn’t doomed to die and you weren’t doomed to kill anyone you loved, a world where with or without magic we could willingly entangle ourselves in each other forever. I wanted a world where Fox Way was my home, or at least where it could be and-“

Gansey stopped talking because he was being kissed by Blue.

 

She was really kissing him, first with her lips and then with her tongue, and then with her hands on his face and his hair. Gansey had never been kissed like this, not by anyone and certainly not by Blue. Maybe the fact that it was Blue was making the whole seem so much more electric, literally, whatever mirror magic was in her heart was under her skin, so hot in small space of The Pig.

 

“Come inside, it’s too cold to keep the car running.” Gansey said, running his hands over blue’s jacket and to her neck.

 

He let them into Monmouth, which was so quiet. She wanted to call out for Noah, but remembered it was pointless.

 

She followed Gansey to his room and watched him move to put his coat down near a towering bookshelf and collection of maps that they didn’t need anymore, relics of a past adventure.

 

Gansey crossed the room to stand in front of her and without speaking her pushed her jacket off.

 

She had an Aglionby sweater on under, and he was sure it wasn’t his and figured it must be Ronan’s because Adam was so careful with his things. The idea of Blue wearing Ronan’s sweater made Gansey’s heart swell and the sight of her in it did weird things to other parts of his body.

 

“Mmm, I like the look, Blue. A lot.” He whispered into a kiss, running his hands along the grey sweater.

“I thought you might,” She said with a coy smile. She was magnificent in this light, shades of coffee and cinnamon and rose.

He kissed her again, slowly at first and then the shivers from her body washed over him and he could feel his mind slipping. Blue, Blue, Blue. He couldn’t believe it. He had thought about this so much, really just _all the time_ for months.

 

He had pictured this scenario in his head and every time the mere idea of it was enough to send him into catatonic overdrive but this was, this was something else entirely because Blue pulls away from him and her eyes, normally the color of crushed brick, are dark enough to scry into when she pulls the sweater over her head.

 

Gansey should have expected between 3-5 more layers of clothing underneath it, but there was a wild, perfect moment where he thought that when she lifted up the sweater there would be nothing but the smooth mocha skin of her belly and, god he wanted to know what color her nipples were. He wondered if they were hard from thinking about him, if she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He wondered if she was wet.

 

 

He swallowed hard and took in her grey thermal and white tank top and he wanted to peel each one off of her, like layers of an onion until there was nothing underneath but the rawest, most tender pieces.

 

“You’re so beautiful,” He said as he brushed his lips against her neck.

“I can’t believe I can kiss you, Blue, I can’t believe I can do this,” He placed another kiss to her jaw, the base of her throat, her mouth, her eyes.

“I want to kiss you everywhere,” he said softly and Blue convulsed against him and whimpered.

“Gansey please,” She said breathlessly, and he backed her slowly toward the bed until her legs hit the mattress and then she lowered down onto the bed.

She scooted into the center of the bed, laughing awkwardly and perfectly and he lowered himself over her body, holding his weight on his arms on either side of her.

They had never done this before, they had never been in a bed, with him on top of her, and his heart was a hammer ready to break the cage of his body.

 

He kissed her again, and Blue arched up into his body to nip at his bottom lip and the sharp sensation of pain and pleasure mingling made him lose some of the strength in his arms and he buckled closer to her.

 

Blue was clearly encouraged by the effect her actions had on Gansey because she nipped at his mouth again and then at his jaw and his ear. He lost it at that, and let his weight fall onto her with a groan, tilting his head toward her hot little mouth so she could keep nibbling and suckling at his ear.

 

His hips stuttered against hers, and he had really been trying to keep his weight above her so she wouldn’t feel how hard he was, but there was no hiding it now because his erection was pressed against her hip and then, then he felt Blue _arch up_ against him and grind her hips so his cock was squeezed between the fabric of his pants.

 

“Oh God,” he said, and his mouth fell open from where he had been kissing Blue and he had to stop to bring one hand into her hair and then she did it again.

Gansey was panting, he didn’t want to push back, he didn’t want to push her to fast, he knew she needed time to…what was it? Time to something, adjust, maybe or… Shit.

Blue rocked against him again, centering his length against the line of her pussy.

He was slipping, fingers grabbing at wet moss on sheer rock and he sucked at her neck with abandon, not caring if he was leaving marks, hoping that he did.

 

She did that hip thing again and he was pretty sure he cried out and then he had to say something so he said “Blue, we don’t have to do this, if you don’t want to. We can stop, we can just slee- Oh!” Gansey stopped talking because Blue was pulling off her shirt, and this time he really did get to see what was under those layers.

 

It was this: Blue’s skin tacky with sweat, even in the chill of Monmouth, her stomach rising and falling rapidly with the rate of her breathing.

It was this: a green bra with small white flowers on it covering more than Gansey would have thought Blue possessed, but then again she did always keep pretty covered up.

He reached his hands up to grab at her through her bra, he needed to know what color her nipples were, he had been _literally_ dreaming about Blue’s nipples for months.

 

“I don’t wanna stop.” Blue said, her eyes huge and dark and wet.

“Are you sure?” He asked, trying to catch his breath, trying to look like he had some ounce of control now but he was failing and he was sure he looked even more wrecked and wild than she did.

 

Blue laughed, just once, and said “I’m sure, Gansey don’t stop please,” and her eyes fell closed as Gansey kissed her exposed chest, her collar bones and her shoulders.

“Like this?” He asked, and Blue whimpered and nodded.

He dipped below her bra to her ribs, placing kisses there before sucking on that skin too, leaving tiny, colorful bruises befitting a tiny, colorful girl.

 

 

He kissed her belly, down to her navel and then her hips too. Blue was covering her eyes with her hands, her body was almost convulsing on the mattress. He moved back to kiss her neck again, and so he could whisper in her ear, “I love you, I love you so much.” He said it so quietly and so close that Blue made an almost sobbing noise against his skin.

 

She reached back and unhooked her own bra and he was glad she did because he didn’t want to be the one to push, to take, he wanted her to give and she was.

 

His heart was a jackhammer. His heart was a flock of grieving crows. His heart was a fever.

 

She pulled the bra away from her chest and Gansey really did moan now and he was embarrassed because it sounded more like a gurgle than anything sexy but he didn’t care because here were Blue’s tits, finally. They were perfect mocha mounds with nipples the color of plums in summer and Gansey was willing to bet sweeter by far.

 

“Oh,” he said with reverence and he drew his fingers across her breasts, teasing her nipples into little stone peaks. He leaned down to lick first one, and then the other, and Blue made these little gasping noises as he did, so that the sound went from his ears to his heart and then right to his dick.

 

He was feeling bold now. Really, he’d done a great job holding on this long, as far as teenage boys go he probably deserved a medal but he tells her anyway, “Blue, I want, god there are so many thing I want to do to you I don’t know where to start but please, I need you to tell me if it’s not what you want.”

 

“Gansey this is CLEARLY what I want.” Blue said, leaning up on her elbow and gesturing to her nakedness between them.

 

“So shut up and take off your shirt,” she said in a huff and then added, “please?”

 

He didn’t argue, he tore his shirt off as quickly as he could, coming up to straddle her waist, careful not to bear his weight down. He didn’t want to hurt her.

 

He looked back at her and all the air left his body. He was pretty sure he was dying for a third time but he didn’t care, not at all. He reached out for her breasts again, let his hands come up fully to cover them and shuddered out a breath when she arched into him again.

 

He took her shoulders and flipped them, so that Blue was straddling him in just her tights and skirt against his pants, both of them shirtless. Her mouth was parted, lips wet and open. Her eyes were fire as she settled her weight on him and moved her hips slowly, experimentally.

 

He pushed back this time as she came down and ground his erection against the heat of her pussy and she gasped, her hands came to his shoulders, fingers gripping him.

 

“Oh,” She said, surprised. Gansey felt like his heart was going to burst. He did it again, and again. Blue was rocking on him, her tits moving as she did. He was trying to commit everything to memory, the skin on her shoulders, her eyes wide and curious, the taste of her body so close to his, he could tell she wanted him, he could smell it.

 

“You like that?” He asked, voice lower than he expected it to be as his hands held her hips to keep her tight against him.

 

She nodded her head and closed her eyes, grinding on him harder, each time their bodies connected Blue shuddered and gasped. She lowered her face to his neck to pant against him.

 

“I like it so much,” She whispered, “I can feel how hard you are.”

Gansey’s brain was short-circuiting, he pushed up again, and again and again and Blue’s hands clawed at his shoulders as she started to make these little gaspy noises and throw herself back against him.

 

He was pretty sure he was going to cum in his pants.

He was pretty sure he couldn’t give a shit, there was nothing else he wanted right now except maybe to cum inside Blue.

 

“Blue,” His eyes were closed tight, so he was surprised when she kissed him.

“Gansey,” She said.

“Blue I’m gonna- If you keep doing that, I’m not gonna be able, I might.”

“What’s that now? I’m sorry Gansey you’re just not making any sense.” She said playfully.

“Blue…”

“What’s gonna happen?” She asked, rolling against him again, the heat of her body was liquid fire against him and the rough fabric of his pants was delightful.

“I’m gonna cum, Blue, feeling you on me like this, every time you push against me, I’m close now.” He watched her as he spoke and her face cracked open and she was dry humping him with abandon. He rose to meet her thrusts.

“Good,” She said, and licked his jaw, grinding, grinding, grinding.

Gansey was close, his whole body was so hot and his stomach was coiled like an angry snake ready to jump. He could feel his orgasm building in his gut, in his legs, behind his eyes, in his heart.

“Oh shit,” He said, “Oh, Oh!” He couldn’t help it, he was crying out and Blue leaned back to watch him as he lost control. He was sure he made pitiful little grunts, too high pitch to be sexy, but Blue was clearly loving it because she wasn’t stopping, wasn’t slowing down.

“Oh Blue!” He cried out and sat up, keeping her hips flush against his he pushed back against her stuttering his hips carelessly, holding her body to his chest so mouth was on her ear as he pumped and grunted.

He saw stars, he saw the creation of the earth and the end of time when he came.

 

He kept holding her and put his hands on his hips to still her, she was still pumping against him and he was wet and soft and very sensitive.

 

She got the message and lifted her hips, coming off of him to sit next to him.

 

He collapsed and tried to catch his breath, but all he could think about was Blue, still worked up, still trying to rock against him so he turned on his side and kissed her, bringing his hand down to her tights. They were wet, oh god she had no underwear under them. He was so close to her. The nylon was hot and sticky against her lips. He could feel the shape of her pussy, and he dragged his finger hard against the fabric and along her slit.

 

“Oh!” She said, as his hand hit the top and his thumb pressed against her clit.

He smirked, and did it again. He began to rub the rough nylon steadily along her clit, and watched her chest rise and fall rapidly. He brought his other hand to her breasts and began to pinch and squeeze her nipples, dipping down to lick and suckle at them.

 

“Gansey, that feels so good, oh my god.” She whimpered and he moved his hand from her breasts to her hips to help still her body. He watched her, fingers moving quickly against her sopping tights as she tried to catch her breath and she looked like she was going to cry, but she screamed instead. Her body arched up toward him and he kissed her as she came, he could feel her get even wetter against his fingers and oh my god he wanted to touch her everywhere.

There was time, they had time. They had so much time.

They kissed and kissed and caught their breath against each other before closing their eyes.

 

Gansey woke a little while later, cold and sticky and wet. He got out of bed and went into the bathroom to wipe himself off. He changed into sweats and a sweater and brought another pair of track pants for Blue, who put them on quietly in the dark and pulled the Aglionby sweater over her head.

 

She curled back into him, one leg over his hips and her head on his chest.

 

“I love you, Blue Sargent.” He said.

“I love you too, Dick Gansey the Third.” She said.

 

They fell back asleep and didn’t even feel cold once for the rest of the night.

 

 

 

Across Henrietta the temperature steadily dropped to record breaking lows. A layer of frost sealed everything made of metal and turned the world to crystal.

 

At St. Anges, Adam woke freezing not long after he fell asleep and headed to The Barns instead.

 

At The Barns, Chainsaw slept near the fire and Opal was curled against Ronan under blankets on the couch, two sleeping faces turned toward the glow.

 

At 300 Fox Way Maura and Calla woke and went silently to Persephone’s room and began to move quickly, rearranging cards in curious and jagged patterns.

 

Two of cups. Two of swords. The Lovers. The Magician.

The Hanged Man.

The women stopped pulling cards, silent in the freezing night.

 

“I think The Hanged Man is making Henrietta awfully cold.” Maura said.

“Well shit,” Calla said sharply.

“At least it’s a start.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wooo Thanks for reading and for all the comments, I can't tell you how much it means to me that you guys take a second to give me feedback!! Also I am excited because I get to write everyone celebrating Thanksgiving in the next chapter and I have a feeling it's gonna be pretty damn adorable.


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